THE FOUNDATION

IN BRIEF

Senate Democrats, so blinded by their determination to resist President Donald Trump at every conceivable opportunity, can’t see that they are actually actively working against the very ideal of equality they so regularly espouse. But, honestly, should we expect any different?

Democrats’ latest obstructionist play is to stand against Trump’s nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, a 33-year career veteran of the agency. The Democrats’ objection is that Haspel worked at the agency during those days after the 9/11 terror attacks when the CIA employed “enhanced interrogation” techniques, specifically waterboarding, to extract information out of three prominent al-Qaida terrorist leaders. It was a practice members of both parties supported at the time. The objections to the practice came only years later, after the history and nature of the individuals and threats they presented had long since been forgotten, and when political advantage for Democrats took precedence over national security.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, pleaded to be able to speak at Haspel’s Senate hearing about his waterboarding experience. The Times writes, “Mr. Mohammed’s request to provide unspecified information to the panel adds a new twist to that debate. It was described by one of his lawyers, Marine Lt. Col. Derek A. Poteet, who is helping to defend him from death penalty charges before the military commissions system at the Guantanamo Bay naval station.” It should go without saying that this request should be denied.

Another interesting aspect to the Democrat resistance to Haspel is the fact that she would be the first woman to ever head the CIA. National Review’s Deroy Murdock pointedly calls out the Democrats’ hypocrisy, writing, “One might expect that Senate Democrats, reputedly the vanguard of ‘the Party of Women,’ would help Haspel shatter the glass ceiling at the CIA, an historically male-dominated institution in an historically male-dominated profession. But Democrats are all too eager to lock arms and block this highly qualified and widely praised woman so that they can high-kick President Donald J. Trump in the teeth. So, high-kick the donkeys do. If that means that the first woman nominated to run the CIA never does so, then too bad for Gina.”

As things stand now, her confirmation hangs in the balance. Sen. John McCain, who was actually tortured in Vietnam as opposed to waterboarded (a distinction we believe is critically important), opposes her nomination, though he will be absent for the vote due to treatment for brain cancer. Sen. Rand Paul is also a “no,” while Joe Manchin is the only Democrat senator so far to voice his support. If any more Republicans defect, she may need at least one more Democrat to win confirmation.

A retired U.S. Navy SEAL, Master Chief Special Warfare Operator (Sea, Air, and Land) Britt K. Slabinski, will receive the Medal of Honor on May 24 for “conspicuous gallantry” during a firefight in Afghanistan. Here’s how the White House describes Slabinski’s heroism:

As a Team Leader assigned to a Joint Task Force, in the early morning hours of 4 March 2002, then-Senior Chief Slabinski led a reconnaissance team to its assigned observation area on a snow covered, 10,000-foot mountaintop in support of a major coalition offensive [Operation Anaconda] against Al-Qaida forces in the valley below. Rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fired from enemy fighters hidden and entrenched in the tree lines and rocks riddled the team’s insertion helicopter. One teammate was ejected from the aircraft, and the crippled helicopter crash landed on the valley floor below. Then-Senior Chief Slabinski boldly rallied his remaining team and organized supporting assets for a daring assault back to the mountain peak in an attempt to rescue their stranded teammate. Later, after a second enemy-opposed insertion, then-Senior Chief Slabinski led his six-man joint team up a snow-covered hill, in a frontal assault against two bunkers under withering enemy fire from three directions. He repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire as he engaged in a pitched, close-quarters firefight against the tenacious and more heavily armed enemy forces. Proximity made air support impossible, and after several teammates became casualties, the situation became untenable.

Senior Chief Slabinski maneuvered his team to a more defensible position, directed air strikes in very close proximity to his team’s position, and requested reinforcements. As daylight approached, the accurate enemy mortar fire forced the team further down the sheer mountainside. Carrying a seriously wounded teammate down a sheer cliff face, he led an arduous trek across one kilometer of precipitous terrain, through waist-deep snow while continuing to call fire on the enemy who was engaging the team from the surrounding ridges. During the subsequent 14 hours, he stabilized casualties on his team and continued the fight against the enemy until the mountaintop was secured by the quick reaction force and his team was extracted.

The Battle of Takur Ghar was considered by the Defense Department as U.S. special operators’ most intense firefight since Mogadishu in 1993. Seven Americans were killed and 12 wounded, and U.S. forces lost two MH-47 Chinooks. One other American, Air Force Technical Sgt. John Chapman, will receive the Medal of Honor posthumously for actions during the battle. He will be the first Airman to receive it since Vietnam.

It’s Chapman’s story, however, that makes Slabinski’s Medal of Honor unusually controversial. The Navy argues that Chapman was already dead when the SEALs evacuated under Slabinski’s command. The Air Force insists the SEALs left Chapman alone on the mountainside to later die in the assault. Drone footage and autopsy results appear to corroborate the Air Force’s account.

Though the USAF does not assert that leaving Chapman behind was purposeful or anything less than the best the SEAL operators could do under terrible circumstances, some argue that Slabinski’s Medal is a SEAL effort to save face. At the same time, the Medal of Honor is the most strenuously vetted award, and, given that it’s been 16 years since the battle, it’s not easy to second-guess the decision to award Slabinski with the Medal given what he thought he knew during the battle.

Slabinski previously earned the Navy Cross for his actions in the battle, but he will now become the 12th living service member to be awarded the Medal for actions in Afghanistan. He retired in 2014 after serving in the Navy for 25 years, including nine deployments overseas and 15 combat missions.

FEATURED ANALYSIS

Many things divide Americans. But most polarizing is the reality that some Americans, mostly conservative, believe in the Rule of Law. Other Americans, mostly progressive, also believe in the Rule of Law — but only if it aligns with their political agenda. Nothing reveals the divide better than the progressive effort to champion illegal immigration and an open-to-all asylum system, while virtually ignoring immigrants who play by the rules.

If a picture of Keith Ellison, deputy chairman of the Democrat National Committee (DNC), taken during the May Day parade in Minneapolis doesn’t end up in ads run by every GOP politician running in November, Republicans are brain-dead. It features Ellison wearing a T-shirt with the words “Yo No Creo En Fronteras” emblazoned on the front.

Translation? “I do not believe in borders.”

In a sane nation, a prominent member of a national party advocating for the end of national sovereignty — and by extension, the Constitution itself — would be committing career suicide. In this one, Ellison is joined by the likes of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was so incensed about a raid conducted by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in April that he sent the agency a “cease and desist” letter.

Cease and desist doing what? In a statement detailing the arrest of 225 illegals during a six-day period that month, ICE revealed that “more than 180 were convicted criminals or had criminal charges pending, more than 80 had been issued a final order of removal and failed to depart the United States or had been previously removed from the United States and returned illegally. Several had prior felony convictions for serious or violent offenses, such as child sex crimes, weapons charges, and assault, or had past convictions for significant or multiple misdemeanors.”

Cuomo’s response? The letter sent to acting ICE Director Thomas Homan stated that ICE agents “have become increasingly reckless and reflect a serious disregard for the rule of law.” Cuomo further asserted that if all illegal immigrants working on New York farms were arrested, it would engender a cut of more than $1.37 billion in the state’s agricultural industry production.

Amidst these contemptible machinations, genuine American values are being obscured. “America’s most forgotten men and women may be the legal immigrants who acquire their visas, scale no barriers, and patiently await their green cards and citizenship ceremonies,” writes columnist Deroy Murdock. “Amid the raging DACA debates, the fugitive-city outrages, and [the infamous] Honduran-caravan epic at the San Diego–Tijuana border, these overlooked individuals ring America’s doorbell rather than pry open the back entrance.”

Legal immigrants are not forgotten. They are marginalized by a Democrat-Media Complex that knows such people represent a mortal threat to The Narrative™ — a narrative that requires the deliberate conflation of “legal” and “illegal” immigrant, because absent the critical distinction, progressive assertions that Americans who disagree with their agenda are racist, bigoted, xenophobic and nativist ring exceedingly hollow.

Without that conflation, Americans would be constantly reminded of the stark difference between law-abiding and respectful people requesting entry and the activist-abetted, often lawless arrogance of those demanding it.

Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) senior researcher Nayla Rush, who legally emigrated from Lebanon and endured the costs and legal requirements associated with doing so, is taken aback by the attitude of the Central American caravaners — caravaners indoctrinated and enabled by the Pueblo Sin Fronteras (PSF) activist group. “I could comprehend someone wanting a better life, sneaking in, and, if caught, feeling apologetic,” she explains. “But these people are marching in front of cameras, in front of the whole world. They demand to be admitted here. Where does this sense of entitlement come from?”

It comes from several realities that make an utter mockery of legal immigration. “The DOJ had made it clear to caravan members that they would be arrested,” explains columnist Daniel Greenfield. “But because of the law, they can only be charged with a misdemeanor.”

Moreover, changes enacted by the U.S. Sentencing Commission during the last year of the Obama administration generally reduced the sentences for those illegally crossing the border after being previously deported.

Yet probably the most important piece of the entitlement mentality is driven by the bastardization of good intentions that initially precipitated the welcoming of refugees during World War II and the Cold War. The United Nations created the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol that defined the term “refugee,” outlined refugee rights, and illuminated the legal obligations of the world’s signatory nations to protect them. The U.S. became a signatory in 1968.

Yet as Greenfield further explains, policies initially aimed at helping those fleeing genuine oppression or catastrophe have been watered down to include an “economic migrant from a non-democratic country, a country suffering from natural disasters, a civil war or crime,” he writes.

The problem? “That’s most of the planet.”

Thus it should surprise no one that the Rule of Law, which requires a reasonable amount of timeliness to be effective, is the first casualty. The backlog of cases addressing the combination of illegals and “refugees” waiting to have their status adjudicated has exceeded one million, precipitating 684,000 delayed deportations.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken steps to disincentivize illegal crossings, separating illegal immigrant parents from their children, rather than keeping them in detention together. “If you cross this border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you,” Sessions warned. “It’s that simple.”

That separation policy has long existed, but is now being enforced because the number of attempted border breaches tripled from last April to this April.

Cue the leftist outrage. “This administration is set on tearing families apart, detaining immigrants without justification,” said Vedant Patel of the DNC.

The American Left is attempting to tear the country apart — eviscerating the Rule of Law and calling it “compassion.”

Murdock spoke to a Russian named Boris, who has waited 12 years — and spent $83,000 — in his quest for citizenship. “Those who violated U.S. laws to get here, arrived through acts of disrespect for this country. Why do these people get to go ahead of me?” he asks.

Between now and November, every Democrat should have to answer that question.

OPINION IN BRIEF

John Bolton: “The president has famously referred to [the Iran deal] as ‘the worst deal in history.’ Its very premise has been betrayed by its own abysmal track record over the past two years. The theory behind the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, was that the Iranian regime would, in the interests of its own people, trade its nuclear ambitions for economic incentives. But rather than focusing on behaving responsibly, Tehran has poured billions of dollars into military adventures abroad, spreading an arc of death and destruction across the Middle East from Yemen to Syria. Meanwhile, the Iranian people have suffered at home from a tanking currency, rising inflation, stagnant wages and a spiraling environmental crisis. President Trump acted prudently. He spent more than a year studying the deal, soliciting information and assessments from within his administration, and consulting with our allies. He decided that this deal actually undermines the security of the American people he swore to protect and, accordingly, ended U.S. participation in it. This action reversed an ill-advised and dangerous policy and set us on a new course that will address the aggressive and hostile behavior of our enemies, while enhancing our ties with partners and allies.”

SHORT CUTS

For the record: “Donald Trump just blew up the deal Obama made that served Iran’s interest and, by extension, Russia’s interests. Trump’s blow was against Russia’s geopolitical goals in the Middle East. Yet the left continues to promote the delusion that Trump is ‘soft’ on Russia.” —Gary Bauer

Without double standards, leftists wouldn’t have any: “Following the 2016 election, President Obama rightly warned the Trump transition team ‘we only have one president at a time.’ It was a reminder that there can be just one person articulating American foreign policy so world leaders will have no doubt as to the United States’ intentions. Obama’s former secretary of state, John Kerry, ignored that warning and has been behaving as if he’s still in office.” —Cal Thomas

Among the manifold reasons you’re not president… “Pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal is a big mistake. It makes America less safe and less trusted. Iran is now more dangerous. … As Secretary of State, I helped negotiate the crippling international sanctions that brought Iran to the table. It would be much harder a second time, now that our credibility is shot.” —Hillary Clinton

Well, yeah, that’s the point: “Everything President Obama has done, this president wants to undo.” —Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Non Compos Mentis: “I think that one of the things that I see on the right is they are so much more willing to lie, cheat, steal, deceive, break the law — tactics that frankly we don’t use in the progressive community.” —former Planned Parenthood president and baby murderer/body parts saleswoman Cecile Richards

Hyper hypocrisy: “It’s a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Do you believe the previous interrogation techniques were immoral? I’m not asking do you believe they were illegal. I’m asking do you believe they were immoral.” —Sen. Kamala Harris to Gina Haspel (Notably, Harris is concerned with a terrorist getting water up his nose, while being a rabid proponent of the legal-but-immoral practice of abortion.)

And last… “If you believe that Gina Haspel should be barred from leading the CIA because she followed protocol in the early 2000s, please name the person who worked at the CIA at that time who shouldn’t be barred.” —Ben Shapiro

Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, and for their families. We also humbly ask prayer for your Patriot team, that our mission would seed and encourage the spirit of Liberty in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis

Nate Jackson, Managing Editor Mark Alexander, Publisher

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